Pynchon caught the time of the social change, among other things...

[Mark Kohut]

transnational corporations as people; massive accumulation by them of surplus 
value via labor
exploitation and use to strengthen hegemony; and, via Gramsci, what we used to 
call co-optation; 

and manipulation of mass media, perhaps what we used to call 'false 
consciousness'. 


Vineland
is Us and the Weimar Republic as metaphor is Against the Day (which is also much 
more)....
, 
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/04/201142612714539672.html